Life: Idiotropic

Though the markets began right before Thanksgiving, tonight was our first of the year. We bundled up and went to the Geilenkirchen market that will only run 3 days. It's a small local market - humorous, in many respects, but nice in that it's our market - a market for our community in which we ran into many people that we knew.

We parked at the Extra parking lot and walked through the small shopping courtyard area towards the Gymnasium (high school). Until we got to the main street, it was empty with no signs of anything out of the ordinary going on. Then as soon as we spotted the street, we could see the rows of vendors and the lady with mannequins right in our view - a male mannequin standing in the cold wearing nothing but a bright red pair of briefs. Tucked in the front was the sign with the price. This was not the first view of the Christmas market that I expected and definitely a stark difference from the larger, more traditional markets like the one in Aachen. So odd - it wasn't even holiday underwear!

So, it was a small market running just three blocks down in the market square and in the open square of the gymnasium. The booths were varied - some run by local stores selling the same things they do in their shops, some run by organizations earning money for charity, some very crafty (bordering on the tacky), then candy, nuts, and a lot of food. And... there were a couple vendors that looked like tired old people cleaning our their homes - garage sale at the Weinachtsmarkt - hence the strange array of mannequins.

It was a safe market for me because there was really nothing that I couldn't live without; however the sweet smell of licorice hit us as soon as we got within 6 feet of the table. It was sooo strong and so delicious. I tried one and really, it was the best licorice candy I've ever tried. So, I said I'd come back at the end of our evening which I did. The sad thing was that he had about 20 different sizes and shapes of hard licorice bonbons and I couldn't remember the one I'd tried. I tasted 4 different ones and not one was the one I'd had before. So I bought two bags of other flavors and hope that I got it right. The smell. Mmmm. I wish I could have bottled it. I could have stood there breathing it in all night.

The other purchase was a wreath and a beautiful sprig of fresh mistletoe complete with translucent white berries on it.

Once we'd walked around the entire market (didn't take too long), we escaped the cold into Schleypen for hot cocoa and coffee. It's such a nice place there - like my Cheers - it feels like home.

Then the kids were hungry (me too), so we went out again to stand at the Hollandischer Pommes booth for some "absolutely delicious, could have eaten 5 cones of them" french fries and foot long bratwurst sticking out of teeny tiny brotchen rolls. I don't normally eat bratwurst or french fries, but standing in the cold at a Christmas market makes it all taste so delicious. The lights on the booths were on by then. Friends were walking by and saying hello. We were all together warm and happy eating and listening to the music from the stage. I'll miss this.

Just as we were turning to leave, St. Nikolaus came up to the stage. He was quite thin and needed some help getting up the stairs. He was wearing his long red robe and tall red papal hat. The crowds with their children gathered quickly and our girls were excited. Four children came onto the stage one by one to tell their names and sing a little song or recite a poem, then Nicolaus gave them a weckmann brot (man shaped bread). Before handing out the bread to the rest of the children, an older lady brought an elderly man to the foot of the stage in a wheelchair. The man wore his traditional green felt hat with a feather in it. His face was worn, but so full of character. And as the microphone was brought to him, he, just like a child, said his name and started very slowly and carefully to recite a poem too. He got only a couple lines finished, then paused and said "weck" in his cracked shaky voice. Away. He couldn't remember. It was such a sweet moment to stand there in the crowd in such respectful silence listening to this old man try to hard to remember and hear St. Nikolaus so sweetly telling him that it was ok and handing him bread for himself and his grandchildren. These are the cultural moments that I cherish here. These are the moments when time stands still and all the irritations that we experience here and there drop by the wayside.